The invention relates to an apparatus on a spinning preparation machine, especially but not exclusively a flat card, roller card or similar, for monitoring and/or adjusting clearances at components.
When cleaning or carding the fibre material, for example, cotton and/or synthetic fibres, stationary cleaning or carding elements are normally placed facing a rotating roller fitted with clothing. To achieve a good cleaning and/or carding action, these elements must be arranged as close as possible to the clothing of the rotating roller. Adjustment is effected in the cold state or with the roller stationary. Owing to the heat generated in operation and owing to the roller expansion caused by centrifugal force during rotation, the clearance between the roller and the cleaning or carding elements diminishes. In the process, if the adjustment was not effected according to specifications, it may happen that these elements touch the roller during operation. This contact often leads to further heating and to an associated contact pressure on the clothing, with the result that this may “burst”. This is associated with considerable consequential damage.
In consequence of misadjustments or incorrect machine operation, carding machines may crash. The repair costs for such crashes are substantial. Contact between a stationary component and, for example, a carding cylinder, has destructive consequences, because due to the setting of its abrasive teeth the roller clothing exerts a strong pulling action on components on contact therewith, and when contact is discovered, for example, by an operator, the rollers take at least five minutes to run down to a standstill. Damage escalates during this time.
The effective clearance of the tips of a clothing from a machine element facing the clothing is called the carding gap. The last-mentioned element can also have a clothing, but could instead be formed by a casing element having a guide surface. The carding gap is crucial for the carding quality. The size (width) of the carding gap is an important machine parameter, which shapes both the technology (the fibre processing) and the running performance of the machine. The carding gap is set to be as narrow as possible (it is measured in tenths of a millimeter), without running the risk of a “collision” between the work elements. To ensure a uniform processing of the fibres, the gap must be as uniform as possible over the entire working width of the machine.
The carding gap is influenced in particular by the machine settings on the one hand and by the condition of the clothing on the other hand. The most important carding gap of the revolving flat card is located in the main carding zone, i.e. between the cylinder and the revolving flat assembly. At least one clothing, which adjoins the working distance, is in motion, more often than not both clothings. In order to increase the production of the card, it is endeavoured to select the operating revolution speed or the operating speed of the moving elements to be as high as the technology of fibre processing allows. The operating state alters in dependence on the operating conditions. The change is effected in the radial direction (starting from the axis of rotation) of the cylinder.
During carding, increasingly larger amounts of fibre material per unit of time are processed, which means higher speeds of the work elements and higher installed power capacities. Increasing volumetric flow rate of fibre material (output), even with a working area that remains constant, leads to increased generation of heat due to the mechanical work. But at the same time the technological carding result (sliver uniformity, degree of cleaning, reduction in neps etc.) is continuously improved, which involves more active surfaces in carding engagement and closer settings of these active surfaces with respect to the cylinder (tambour). The proportion of synthetic fibres to be processed is steadily increasing, and in this case—compared with cotton—through contact with the active surfaces of the machine more heat is generated by friction. The work elements of high-performance cards are nowadays fully enclosed on all sides, in order to comply with high safety standards, to prevent particle emission into the spinning room environment and to minimise required maintenance of the machines. Grids or even open, material-guiding surfaces that permit air exchange, belong to the past. The conditions mentioned clearly increase the input of heat into the machine, whilst the discharge of heat by means of convection clearly decreases. The resultant greater heating of high-performance cards leads to greater thermoelastic deformations, which, owing to the non-uniform distribution of the temperature field, influence the set clearances of the active surfaces: the clearances between cylinder and card top, doffer, fixed card tops and separation points with blades decrease. In an extreme case, the space set between the active surfaces can be completely absorbed by thermal expansions, so that components moving relative to one another collide. The result is major damage to the high-performance card in question. Moreover, in particular the generation of heat in the working region of the card can lead to different thermal expansions in the case of unduly large temperature differences between the components.
To reduce or avoid the risk of collisions, in practical operation the carding gap between clothings facing one another is set to be relatively wide, i.e. a certain safety clearance exists. A large carding gap, however, leads to undesirable nep formation in the card sliver. In contrast, an optimum, especially narrow size is desirable, whereby the nep count in the card sliver is substantially reduced.
In one known arrangement, a clothed, high-speed roller is located facing at least one clothed and/or unclothed component and the clearance between the components facing one another is alterable, the components arranged with a clearance being electrically isolated with respect to one another and being connected as contact elements to an electrical power supply line, in which a measuring element for ascertaining contact is located. In DE-PS 229 595, in the case of a roller card where clearance between the card wire elements is to be monitored, in accordance with a first embodiment of the publication it is known to connect the card wire covering of each element as contact to an electrical power supply line, in which there is a signalling or alarm device. According to a second embodiment, contact rockers are present, which are connected to the electrical power supply line as contacts. It is a disadvantage that even upon a single touching (contact) merely between two facing tips the circuit is closed and the signalling or alarm device takes effect. It may also happen that an electrically conductive particle is circulating with the fibre material, which leads to a spurious shutdown through point contact touch. At the high circumferential speeds and centrifugal moments of the clothed rollers, individual protruding tooth tips or small conductive particles are in practice, however, ground off after such a signal. The known apparatus allows only the mere detection of contact.